


Little Small Deaths

by Siobhane



Series: Phoenix Rising [3]
Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Alcohol, Death, F/M, Mild Sexual Content, Needles, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27159250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siobhane/pseuds/Siobhane
Summary: He's died so many times, he's lost count.  She'll keep trying to end him no matter how long it takes.
Series: Phoenix Rising [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1463035
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Little Small Deaths

**Author's Note:**

> I recommend reading the other parts of this series first, if you haven't already. They're all technically stand-alone one-shots, but they're all related. 
> 
> ***semi-inspired by Hozier's "Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene."

Another bar. Whatever city he’s in at the moment – he’s lost track and they’re all pretty much the same no matter where he is – and whichever country. It’s all the fucking same. Same generic wood bar, neon signs, fake leather on the stools. Same surly bartender that will scoff at whatever paltry tip he leaves. Bastard is lucky he leaves anything, to be honest. 

Same, cheap, dirty glass with too much ice and not enough liquor in it. 

But, there’s not enough liquor in the world to fix everything that’s gone wrong since Timber. 

The woman at the bar next to him hides her face behind a curtain of honey-blonde hair. She chose the stool beside him half an hour ago, though there are ten others sitting unoccupied, safer and more practical, than this one. 

As if she is unaware he is an apex predator and she is an unsuspecting doe. 

She should be able to smell it. Her instincts should warn her off, should tell her she’s made an unwise choice coming into this bar, on this night, that she has picked the wrong sort of man for company. 

Then again, he’s got her number, too. He knows her by scent alone. By her choice of drink. By the facade she wears. She’s not as good an actress as she thinks she is. 

She’s on her third drink. Good whiskey. Neat. No embellishments. Nothing to cut the harsh, heady bite. He’d be impressed if he didn’t know her preference.

He’ll taste it on her breath later. This always ends the same way. 

“Another,” he says to the bartender and taps the bottom of his empty glass against the wood before him. The bartender ignores him.

The music changes. Slow blues, aching and raw and dripping with sex and pain. 

“Hey, asshole,” he yells at the bartender. “Need a refill.”

The bartender flicks his eyes in Seifer’s direction. They rake over him, sharp as claws, and he takes his time, deliberately leaving fingerprints on the rim of the glass, deliberately pouring the cheapest of liquor, though he will charge Seifer for premium. 

It would be easier, and cheaper, to get a bottle from the liquor store down the road. He could spare himself the disdain, but Seifer is a bit of a masochist. Picking at the scabs of those old wounds is easier than accepting he’ll be scarred for life. 

His drink arrives and the woman beside him asks for another. 

“Put his on my tab, too,” she says. “And please. Make mine a double. Neat.”

She’s doing a great fucking job of emulating a woman who does not get off on bloodshed. Prim and proper and refined, a woman who does not belong in a shitty-ass dive like this. So good at playing the innocent when it suits her, all while sticking knives in his back and slicing him open with her hateful tongue. 

“I don’t need your fuckin’ charity,” he says. 

“Not sure what you mean.” 

“Gimmie a break,” he mutters into his glass. “How many times are we gonna do this?”

“As many times as it takes, I suppose.”

No matter where he is, they always find him. To date, Squall is the only one they haven’t sent after him. So far, none of them have succeeded in killing him. And Hyne, does he wish they would. 

Her drink arrives and she turns to face him fully. Gold rimmed glasses perch on her nose. Blue eyes implore him to listen to reason. She pretends she gives a shit, but this will end the same as it always does. He knows it. She knows it. Why she still plays the game is a mystery. 

She slides a key card across the bar slowly and her nails flash crimson. He knows without asking that her lingerie is black. Just in case she gets lucky tonight. 

After all, it’s hard to get bloodstains out of any other color. 

Seifer has to admire her perseverance, if not her optimism. She won’t stop. Not until he’s dead. He wonders what it will be this time. Poison? Asphyxiation? A bullet to the head? 

He takes the card and slips it into a hidden pocket inside the breast of his tattered coat. It used to be pristine white, but these days it’s a sad, dingy gray, frayed at the cuffs and hem. The only reason he still wears it is because it’s his only tie left to the stupid, arrogant boy he used to be, though he’s lost hope he’ll ever get that part of himself back.

This time he’ll burn the key card and peace the fuck out, leave her waiting. And then he will wait until she finally realizes he’s not coming. He’ll lurk in the shadows like the monster he is, and he will finally put an end to this. Send her back to them in a body bag, a message for the rest of them. 

She tucks a strand of golden hair, turned to straw in the light, and he is reminded of all the times she was cruel to him over the years. 

How many times she cut him down with words – words that said I’m smarter than you, better than you, you are a fuck-up, a disappointment, nothing, a useless slab of meat with no purpose now that the witch is dead.

She finishes her drink and leaves a crisp bill on the bar as she stands without looking at him. He does not look at her, or the cash lying next to her empty glass. She doesn’t acknowledge him on the way out except for brief glance over her shoulder as she walks out the door that he catches in the mirror behind the bar. Her smile is knowing. Mean.

Not this time. Not again. He’s not going to play her game. She can fuck herself tonight.

He takes out a wad of cash from his pocket and flings it onto the bar. He’s lost his taste for drink. It’s blood he wants. Might as well settle up his tab and head back to the roach motel he’s called home the last two days. 

“Six gil,” the man says as he counts the cash and calculates his tip. “That must have hurt you, pal.”

“About as much as it hurt your lazy ass to pour me a fuckin’ drink,” Seifer replies. 

“You’re lucky you got served at all, ya bastard.”

This guy deserves a broken jaw for that but Seifer slides off the stool and tips it sideways. It crashes to the floor and all the other patrons, all 9 of them, turn to see what the ruckus is.

“Oops,” Seifer says and knocks his empty glass to the floor. “My bad.”

He expects it to shatter, wants it to bust into ten-thousand tiny daggers, but it doesn’t. It hits the floor, rolls away, and comes to a stop next to the jukebox. 

“Get the fuck out,” the bartender says. “Fuckin’ loser.”

Seifer waves a hand dismissively as he rights himself.

“Gladly. Place blows anyway.”

And then he’s gone, into the night, strains of a blues guitar wailing in his wake. 

* * *

The night air is noxious and heavy with a foul scent, like rotting potatoes. Garbage. It’s muggy and hot, too hot for his threadbare coat, but he won’t take it off. It’s become his armor, as worn and frayed and filthy as it is. 

His flea-bag motel is to the left. The fancy hotel on her key card to his right. 

Fuck her. Fuck SeeD. Fuck all of them. He’s not going to do this again. 

But like a puppet on a string, he turns to the right, drawn in by the promise of pain, the promise of pleasure.

The possibility of death. 

He’s like a sleepwalker as he bypasses the elevator and takes the stairs to the 6th floor. The key card beeps and the door slides open to darkness, the bed already unmade but unoccupied. He can smell her perfume.

The door closes behind him, leaving him in near perfect dark. He sheds his clothing, piece by piece and stands in the middle of the room, waiting, offering himself up to the mercy of the gods, for that is all the mercy he will get tonight. 

He waits in the silence, knowing he isn’t alone. She is here somewhere, biding her time. Drawing out the inevitable. 

“Let’s get this over with,” he says. 

Nothing in the room moves, but the scent of her perfume grows stronger. It’s a heady blend of floral, spice, as intoxicating as any substance he could potentially abuse. Alcohol dulls his senses, but she’s near enough to cut him from groin to gullet if she likes. He won’t stop her if she does. 

Her breath is on his shoulder blade, her lips close behind. He sighs, closes his eyes and gives in. 

As always, her body is lithe and lean, muscular and strong, undulating above him, a shadow, a specter, a fucking tease that will give him the wrong kind of release. His hands follow the motion of her hips, so practiced and precise. She knows exactly what she wants and how to get it, how to draw it out of him, how to make him weak.

He hates her for that. Hates her to her very core, just as he always has. If he had the strength, he would put a bullet between her eyes, slice her from neck to bellybutton. He would relish the warm spray of her blood over his skin.

This time she will finish him off. She has to. Hyne, please, let it be death tonight. 

He’s died so many ways, so many times, tried to end it himself, but he always rises, a little less himself, a little more diminished, a touch more mad. He will not find peace until his heart stops beating for good. There is no happy ending for him, no redemption, no other salvation. 

A hand grips his throat, nails digging in to tender flesh. Fingers tighten around strands of his hair. Nails tear down his chest, ripping trenches in his skin. Her breathing is ragged, the sounds she makes are desperate. Teeth clamp down on the meat of his shoulder, biting hard enough to bleed him. 

Something sharp pricks his neck and a strange sensation coils in his veins. He has a split second to think she’s chosen poison this time, and then his heart stops beating. 

All is quiet. Euphoric.

Dark.

Peace at last. 

* * *

  
Until his heart flutters in his chest, throbs, and bursts into a hard, steady rhythm. 

Heat boils through him, from his toes to his hair follicles, burning him from the inside and his heart gives an unsteady, aching throb before it begins to pound, hard and angry against his rib cage. The room no longer smells of her perfume but of electrical fire, melting plastic. 

The bedside lamp is on and she’s at the edge of the bed, watching him intently, fascinated by the flicker of fire on his skin, the smoldering sheets. There’s a gleam in her eye, an animal quality that he can relate to. 

She gets off on this part. She gets off on killing him, then watching him come back. Again and again and again, watching him burn himself back to life. 

No mercy tonight, no relief. 

He pulls the needle free from his neck and looks at the chamber. Nothing in it but air. That was something he hadn’t considered before, but it wasn’t enough. It’s never enough. 

He wants to cry, scream, to tear the room apart, but he’s been there and it does no good. 

She slides the blonde wig off and tosses it aside. Removes the round, gold glasses and drops them on the nightstand. Her eyes are still blue, but beneath the contact lenses, he knows their real color is dark brown. 

“Nice try,” he says. “Hope they give you a fucking trophy.”

“The only trophy I want is your head mounted on a plaque over my desk,” she says meanly. “Maybe your dick, too.”

“I’m sure you’ll miss my dick the most when I’m gone,” he says and yawns. “Hope it gives you years of pleasure.”

She slaps him with an open palm and he takes it without so much as a sound. It stings, but it’s nothing compared to burning himself back to life. 

“Why won’t you just die already?”

“Why do you pretend to be Trepe?”

“She’s the one with the bleeding heart,” Xu says. “I’d rather not be seen with you.”

“And here I thought you were friends,” Seifer says. “Does she know you’re out ruining her reputation?”

“She’ll understand,” Xu says. “By any means necessary, right?”

“Yet you keep fucking it up.”

“I’ll get it right one of these days.”

Seifer stares at her in the lamplight. 

“That better be a promise.”

"Trust me, nobody wants you dead more than I do."

He snorts softly and stretches his aching body. He's always in pain afterward. This time is no different. 

"That's a lie," he says. "I'd be dead already if that was true."

"You think I want to keep doing this?" she asks and lights a cigarette. "You think I want to spend my time chasing your drunk ass all over Galbadia?"

He drags a finger over the ridge of her hip bone and she slaps his hand away. The room still smells of smoke. Burnt fabric. Now, burning tobacco.

"You're an addict," he says. "You can't stop."

She's on him in a half second, sitting on his chest, her mouth twisted into a snarl. The end of her lit cigarette glows an inch from his eye. 

"You love it," he says. 

"I'm being paid to do a job, and for some reason you won't fucking die."

He hisses when the ember presses into his cheek, searing his skin, skin that will heal in an instant, no matter what she does to it. 

"You like that?" she asks.

Seifer grips her wrist and twists it away from his face, flips her onto her back and looms over her, sneering. 

"You sure seem to," he says. He licks his parched lips. "You know what I think?"

"Not really."

"I think," he says, "that you keep coming back because it's the only way you can justify wanting to fuck me."

He doesn't see the knife until it's already sliced him open from ear to ear. 

And so, he'll burn again.

And again. 

And again. 

_And again._


End file.
